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Rebekah ~Wife to my love, Mama to my two littles, Stepmom to one beautiful young woman~
Forever in my heart; Luisa Grace and her tiny siblings."In your children, you've been handed a piece of history in advance - a gracious gift you send to a time you will not see." ~Tim Kimmel

This thread is so helpful! I would love some advice about stink, stripping and ammonia.

My DD is almost one year and overall we've had no major issues. BUT we are dealing with some stink and ammonia lately, and I've not been able to shift them yet. Most annoying / pressing is the stink. Once she pees in a diaper it will smell like poo / barnyard / FUNK. Overnight diapers are the only ones that smell of ammonia and she hasn't had any rashes from them to date, so I'm not really sure if it's an 'issue' or just normal.

I use pockets with prefolds / flats / hemp to stuff. A couple BG freetimes thrown in the mix too (these are particularly stinky)

I am thinking from reading here and elsewhere that I have residual bacteria in the diapers (not getting clean enough in the first place) but maybe I have buildup??

I started out with Charlie's soap and encountered similar stink issues in my newborn fitteds a couple months in. So I switched to All free & clear (my prior detergent of choice for regular washing so I figured I'd give it a try) Since then I've alternated between those 2 but not tried anything else. Oh I have added Nellie's oxy booster (use it occasionally to soak and in each load if I remember)

My routine (after reading this thread I switched to all HOT) is full wash cycle with no soap, extra heavy cycle with soap (one scoop charlies, to the first line on the all cap), then a rinse. Regular old style top loader. I don't have particularly hard or soft water.

I have boiled and sunned my inserts, soaked in oxy, and added the oxy to the regular wash and none seems to help. Today I boiled my inserts again and soaked the pockets in oxy, then added the inserts to the soak once they were 'cooked'.

What else do I do to strip? If that's what I need anyway.
HELP!

I am going to Target tomorrow and am thinking of picking up some tide, if I can find unscented (I can't stand scented laundry)

This thread is so helpful! I would love some advice about stink, stripping and ammonia.

My DD is almost one year and overall we've had no major issues. BUT we are dealing with some stink and ammonia lately, and I've not been able to shift them yet. Most annoying / pressing is the stink. Once she pees in a diaper it will smell like poo / barnyard / FUNK. Overnight diapers are the only ones that smell of ammonia and she hasn't had any rashes from them to date, so I'm not really sure if it's an 'issue' or just normal.

I use pockets with prefolds / flats / hemp to stuff. A couple BG freetimes thrown in the mix too (these are particularly stinky)

I am thinking from reading here and elsewhere that I have residual bacteria in the diapers (not getting clean enough in the first place) but maybe I have buildup??

I started out with Charlie's soap and encountered similar stink issues in my newborn fitteds a couple months in. So I switched to All free & clear (my prior detergent of choice for regular washing so I figured I'd give it a try) Since then I've alternated between those 2 but not tried anything else. Oh I have added Nellie's oxy booster (use it occasionally to soak and in each load if I remember)

My routine (after reading this thread I switched to all HOT) is full wash cycle with no soap, extra heavy cycle with soap (one scoop charlies, to the first line on the all cap), then a rinse. Regular old style top loader. I don't have particularly hard or soft water.

I have boiled and sunned my inserts, soaked in oxy, and added the oxy to the regular wash and none seems to help. Today I boiled my inserts again and soaked the pockets in oxy, then added the inserts to the soak once they were 'cooked'.

What else do I do to strip? If that's what I need anyway.
HELP!

I am going to Target tomorrow and am thinking of picking up some tide, if I can find unscented (I can't stand scented laundry)

Anytime you smell "barnyard" "poop" or "funk" the problem is that there are still tiny particles of poop and pee in your diapers (ew, right?) It's totally not necessary to do a full wash cycle without soap, all you really need is an initial rinse to get off most of the ickies (though it's great that you're doing everything in hot, or warm if that's not an option!) Otherwise your wash routine sounds fine. You want to make sure you're not washing too few or too many diapers at once (too many and there isn't enough room to move around and let the water and soap penetrate, but too few and there isn't enough friction going on between the diapers to help work out the yuckies) but your best bet is probably just to up your detergent (if you're smelling poop in the diapers, the problem is NEVER to use less detergent! I wish people had stopped telling me that was the solution to everything when I started with cloth diapers!) Ammonia smell in overnight diapers (or in the diaper pail) is totally normal. Ammonia is the breakdown of urine and it'll happen over time but is sped up by lack of air flow (diaper pail!) or heat (which is what happens when a diaper is worn on a warm body for 12 or so hours!) If you have ammonia stink out of the washing machine or after the diaper has been peed on, then you can worry (though in my case, that just means I need more detergent. So ammonia doesn't always mean detergent buildup, either!)

Thanks!!! If I bleach should I take out the pul and just bleach the inserts? If it won't hurt them I'd rather 'treat' everything.

I stripped them by boiling my inserts with a little dish soap then doing a long hot oxy soak. Then a wash with detergent and a bunch of rinses. I did 2 cycles of this to get all of my diapers stripped. There are some inserts still to be done so ill probably do another round this weekend.

So to be more efficient would I be better off to do:
Rinse, wash with soap, rinse?

If I add more soap to the one wash will I need to add extra cycles/ rinses?